Welcome back to Savannah Flavors, our weekly newsletter bringing you the latest delicious details from Savannah’s culinary scene every Thursday.

Here is what’s on the menu today:

• The Alida’s secret menu 🌊🐚

• Fleeting’s favorite spot for soup dumplings 🥟

• Breakfast for dinner? Try this buttermilk pancake recipe

• Downhome cuisine from Brochu’s Family Tradition 🪕🥧

THE MAIN DISH

The Alida launches new Mediterranean menu at The Lost Square Rooftop Bar 🍇 🌊 🫒 

For the last few years, Savannahians and those who visit the Hostess City have been spoiled for choice whenever they have sought out a meal with a view 🌇 

Since The Alida opened back in October of 2018 and presaged the mammoth revitalization of River Street’s west end, The Lost Square had been serving signature cocktails concocted at its own becoming bar and bites elevatored up from the kitchens of Rhett, items from a pared-down main menu of the hotel’s rez-de-chaussée restaurant.

“For five years, we’d been pretty much making food downstairs,” said Bruno Sanchez, the chic hotel’s director of food and beverage.

Say ‘goodbye’ to those up-and-down trips and say ‘hello’ to The Lost Square 2.0, if you will, as a year-long project to reimagine, reconfigure, and retool the rooftop bar has recently wrapped.

“We’ve been keeping it a secret,” Sanchez coyly shared with a laugh.

The most notable change: the Lost Square now has its own discrete and dedicated kitchen from which a carte of scratch-made Mediterranean fare flows 🧿 

“It’s been great to work with the team and see everyone’s efforts,” he happily added. “We are so ready.”

CHEF’S CRAVINGS

Fleeting - Victoria Shore & Cameron Dempsey 🌺 

Each week, I ask the folks behind the phenomenal food at our favorite places around Savannah these same simple questions:

When you are not in your restaurant kitchen, where do you go out to eat and what do you order?

This week’s Chefs’ Cravings come from executive chef Victoria Shore and chef de cuisine Cameron Dempsey, the dynamic duo behind the phenomenal fare at Fleeting and Thompson Savannah.

VS: If we’re going out for a sit-down meal, we go to E-TANG. You probably get the same answer for this question all of the time. I tried to think of something different, but I can’t. The cold spicy beef tendon is always a winner and the red oil wontons 🌶

CD: The soup dumplings 🥟 

VS: Any of the dumplings, yeah. I do also really like the Sichuan beef noodle soup, if I’m just there by myself and can’t order five million things.

CD: The cumin lamb is really tasty, too.

VS: Twice-fried pork. (laughs) I wasn’t lying when I said it’s the most frequented restaurant I go to in town.

CD: I like Pakwan, the Indian place on the Southside.

VS: That’s good, too.

CD: I usually get their chili paneer. I’m a big fan of the paneer cheese and the chicken tikka masala.

VS: The most surprisingly pleasant meal that I’ve had this year was probably at Desposito’s. The hush puppies were amazing. They were delicious.

CD: Over Yonder has the best burger 🍔 

VS: Yeah, hands down. That’s the other one that everyone’s said from what I’ve read in your articles. 

And for a special occasion?

VS: There’s not really anything open too late. If I’m going to grab a casual cocktail, I’ll go to Common Thread, for sure, and get a crudo and a cocktail if I’m feeling fancy. 🍹

CD: Colleagues and Lovers in Habersham Village for drinks. 🌴 Common Thread is on my list, too, and Late Air is also high on that list. They do everything with attention. I like what they have going on.

-Neil Gabbey

TRIED, TASTED, TRUE

Buttermilk pancakes 🍁🫐

THE STORY BEHIND THE RECIPE

Breakfast out for us is rarely, if ever, a multi-plate sitdown affair. We are primarily pastry people, mostly because the best baked goods are best left to the professionals and the common slate of morning fare is fairly easy to make at home. ☀️

That is a nicer way to say that staying in our PJs and not paying fifteen bucks for three eggs and two slices of toast is how we (sweet) roll.

In our house, pancakes are, more often than not, a dinnertime main course. When done right, they are just as deserving of headlining a meal as any other supper standard.

For sure, the worldwidewebternet houses a tall stack of pancake recipes, many touting themselves as ‘best’ or ‘fluffy’ or ‘perfect’, and over the last twenty-plus years, I have strayed from my go-to and tried a few. 

That recipe roaming stopped a few years ago when it was deliciously clear that vegetarian virtuoso Deborah Madison nailed it in her 1997 chef d'oeuvre Vegetarian Cooking for Everyone. Honestly, I cannot recall who bought me that cookbook back in the day, probably during the years that my wife was doing her level best to eliminate land mammals from her diet. Its dust cover long gone, its pages stained with yesteryear spills, Madison’s tome is not a frequent reference anymore, but when pancakes are on the week’s menu, it willingly creases open to page 629.

Unlike other ‘Triple T’ recipes that are more conspicuously dotted with my floury thumbprints, this buttermilk pancake prescription needs less tinkering. Madison calls for between one and three tablespoons of sugar and three tablespoons of melted butter or oil. For the sweet, I split the difference but whisk one tablespoon of sugar into the dry mix and then one tablespoon of honey into the melted butter and oil.

Otherwise, with the smidge of freshly grated nutmeg, I add a half-teaspoon of cinnamon to the dry mix because, to quote Jerry Seinfeld, “People love cinnamon.

Anytime anyone says, ‘Oh This is so good. What's in it?’ The answer invariably comes back: cinnamon. Cinnamon. Again and again.’”

My Calphalon 1213, originally marketed as a “low-rim skillet,” has been through the wars but still works well for pancakes. I turn the burner to medium-low before swiping a tablespoon of canola oil over its surface with a balled-up paper towel and let it heat up while I am whisking up the batter.

Use a spouted bowl or a quarter-cup ladle to drop the batter onto the heated skillet and let it spread on its own. You can go bigger, but that means fewer pancakes per batch, plus you run the risk of the surfaces browning before the interiors set.

Tom Petty must have prepared plenty of pancakes at home. He knew. The only bummer now is the waiting. Few of us have a kitchen flat top that can accommodate a dozen dollops at once, so patience pays off.

The surface of the cooking pancakes will bubble just a bit, and the edges will look set after two minutes or so. Carefully flip each flapjack and count to 120 again. Remove and repeat. If you respray the skillet between batches, know that all of them will bear splotchy coloring. As long as you pour each round of batter in roughly the same spots, every pancake will come away with a smooth tan.

Having grown up in Western New York, we are syrup snobs. Twice a year, I order a half gallon of the real deal from a family farm in our homeland: life priorities, people. Great pancakes deserve something better than colored corn syrup. 🍁

-Neil Gabbey

THE RECIPE

HARD GOODS 

• 200 grams of all-purpose flour (a little more than 1 ½ cups)

• ¼ cup white sugar

• 2 t. baking powder

• 1 t. baking soda

• Pinch kosher salt 🧂

• ½ t. cinnamon

• ¼ t. (or less) freshly grated nutmeg

WET GOODS

• 2 large eggs 🥚

• 1 ½ cups buttermilk

• 2 T. canola oil + 1 T. for the skillet

• 1 T. unsalted butter, melted 🧈 

• 1 T. honey 🍯 

DO THIS

1. Put a skillet on medium-low heat (roughly 375°)

   • Once warm, drizzle the extra 1 T. of oil on the skillet and rub with a paper towel

   • You can use a nonstick cooking spray but still lightly wipe the skillet

2. Melt 1 T. of butter in the microwave or in a small saucepan

3. To the melted butter add 2 T. of oil and 1 T. of honey and whisk to combine

4. In a large spouted bowl or mixing bowl, weigh out the flour and add the sugar, baking powder, baking soda, salt, cinnamon, and nutmeg

5. Lightly whisk the dry goods to combine and make a well in the center

6. In a small mixing bowl or large measuring cup, whisk the eggs and add the buttermilk 🥣 

7. Once the butter-oil-honey has cooled, whisk it into the buttermilk-eggs

8. Turn the heat under the skillet up to medium

9. Pour the wet goods into the dry goods, whisking continuously but not vigorously

   • Whisk and the fold with a rubber spatula until no flour lumps remain

10. Pour or ladle scant ¼-cup portions of batter onto the skillet

11. After about two minutes, the surface will bubble slightly, and the edges will be cooked

12. Gently flip each pancake and wait another two minutes 🥞 

13. Remove the cooked pancakes and repeat

BEEN THERE. ATE THAT.

Brochu’s Family Tradition 🦪 🍓🌤

Embarrassingly, I had not been to Brochu’s Family Tradition in more than a year, and that prior-and-only visit was for an article interview and not a meal. This was too long overdue.

Though the Starland standard for upscale downhome cuisine won instant acclaim for its varied renditions of chicken, our plan walking in was to go rogue: my wife and I would split the green tomato sando 🍅 and the cheddar rillette. 

I know, I know. Our maiden meal at Brochu’s, and we were not going for the whole chicken dinner, the half bird, or even the chicken sandwich. We dared to dine differently.

That Friday evening, the cold snap had lifted, and it was nice enough to sit outside, though just after 5 p.m., the patio area was early-dinner daycare, a toddler at every table. Wisely, we kept our reservation for a two-top inside and were treated to Jeff’s smiles and solicitous service for what was a fantastic first food experience at Brochu’s. 

The ambience of the convivial dining room complements the cuisine, like a fancy Lowcountry family garage, country-hip without being haughty. Lads in mesh-backed trucker hats. Ladies in flowy dresses. Everyone is clearly welcome and warmly welcomed here.

What my wife and I shared came highly recommended from Cotton & Rye’s deliciously dynamic duo of Zach Shultz and Caleb Ayers, but even as I decisively gave Jeff our order, my eyes prowled the menu, planning a return visit.

The cheddar rillette 🧀 ($14) lived up to its billing and then some as a grown-up spin on the pâté of the South. Not a large portion for the price, it nonetheless went a long way between the two of us. The blend of parmesan, cheddar, and mascarpone provides discrete hints of each with the last cleverly precluding any need for either mayo or cream cheese. 

The cauliflower giardiniera camouflages itself into the minced mélange until it emerges between bites, its oily smoothness balanced by the cheddar’s depth.

As directed by Jeff, we tore apart the pillows of house-baked puffy bread to use as tortilla-like conveyance for the rillette. If he had brought us another loaf - or nine - we would have unashamedly eaten them all.

The green tomato sando ($14) is a mammoth sammie, as big as my face and a feat for any one eater, at least a double and here and there a triple-decker of celadon slabs. Battered and deep-fried, the tomato is warm to the core, a bit to the stiffer side of al dente for my tastes, with plenty of tang supplied by both the headliner and the pickle pepper cream condiment.

Served on an upside-down grilled round bun, this is a delightful messy sandwich, if you do it right, at first soft and supple through the bread and melty swiss and then quickly crisp as your teeth meet the breading and tomatoes. 🥖 

Though homey and unpretentious, a bill at Brochu’s can be pricey, the majority of the items on the menu within a breath of $15 and all of its sammies sideless, which has sadly become de rigueur all over the restauration map in recent years.

That being true, my wife and I will definitely be back before another year is out. In some way, shape, or form, chicken 🍗 will be on my plate next time with the wedges on the side.

-Neil Gabbey